This morning we headed over to El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. It was very interesting to see how the art movements we know in the United States from the last couple hundred years translate to what was going on here in Puerto Rico and how in some instances the influence carried over. It was great to have a tour guide there with us to explain the culture impacts and motivation for the art including Puerto Rican love for the plantain, wakes for deceased family members, male dominance, and the sense of culture stripping as new influences came to the island and old traditions, like the traditional farming man living off the land, faded.
We then stopped by one of the oldest churches in Puerto Rico, Parroquia del Espiritu Santo y San in Loiza. Being Catholic myself, it’s very interesting to see Catholicism and Afro-Caribbean influence come together. Some aspects are really familiar to me like the saints and other aspects are completely new to me! The priest of the church really emphasized his goal of bringing back more traditions and really meeting the community where they are at to come together as a community and worship in a way that works for them. Then the bus driver told us they use to bring cars across the water to attend church and the front of the church is actually facing a non-traditional way to accommodate the people coming in, that’s awesome!
We stopped by a street kiosk to grab lunch; it was a great experience to try some of the native, small community food. It took a while to get through the line which just kept growing, everyone was there for a great time and a delicious meal! It was probably the first time we were somewhere as a class where the people we were interacting with did not speak English. Ordering was a little tough, but getting your food and seeing what you ended up ordering pretty blindly was exciting and the food was great.